Profile/John Crawford; A Clear, Cool Voice in the Frenzied World of Chip Design

Published: July 18, 1993

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Mr. Crawford bridles at the suggestion that Intel hasn't earned its success. "It's pretty irritating to say we got handed a franchise," he said. "We earned it. We had the right combination of features."

And that has long been Mr. Crawford's forte: understanding how to get just the right combination of software and hardware features in a microprocessor.

The roots of his intuitive understanding may be found in his beginnings as a software designer. He was first attracted to computing in high school in suburban Philadelphia, but getting time on the school's one system to write Fortran programs was almost impossible. "I figured my time was better spent on rock and roll," he recalls.

It was in college that his love for math blossomed, and after graduate study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under the legendary I.B.M. computer designer Fred Brooks, he began his career at Intel in 1977 as a software designer.

In the early years, software was often an afterthought. In one extreme case, Seymour Cray, the pioneer supercomputer builder, shipped his first models with no system software at all.

In the 1960's and 1970's, designers had generally believed they could simplify a programmer's job by offering hundreds of instructions providing an easy solution for every conceivable task. Computers like I.B.M. mainframes and Digital Equipment minicomputers and even Intel microprocessors all subscribed to this philosophy. The problem was that many instructions were rarely used, so they took up scarce real estate on the chip.

But in the late 1970's and early 1980's, designers began to realize that tremendous speed increases could be extracted from tuning specialized programs called compilers to a particular instruction set. Compilers are programs that translate instructions written by humans into instructions that can be executed directly by a computer.

But Intel had an even more serious problem. While the 8088 had won early favor, the 286 proved a huge disappointment. Designed in consultation with I.B.M., the 286 was less powerful than Motorola's 68000.

Worse, the 286 was a programmer's nightmare. Applications had to be divided into compartments. The comparable Motorola processor offered programmers a single space to write even the largest programs.

So the pressure was on Mr. Crawford. If the 386 repeated the 286's shortcomings, software programmers would probably desert Intel in droves. And the 386, introduced in October 1985, did overcome the glaring deficiencies of the 286. A much faster chip, it soon accelerated the outpouring of software for the I.B.M. desktop standard. The 386 saved Intel's chip business.

During the 386 design Mr. Crawford got his hands dirty, personally writing about a third of the chip's microcode -- software instructions embedded in the hardware.

That soon changed. As architectural manager of the 486, he no longer wrote code, concentrating instead on deploying engineers and resolving disputes. Moreover, through all three generations he has concentrated on grooming his engineers for more responsibility, a hands-off approach that has won him high praise from his staff.

"He lets you prove your competence," said Ken Shoemaker, an engineer on all three Crawford teams. "You know that he's there, but he lets you do what you think is best."

Perhaps the praise is more valuable coming from Mr. Crawford's competitors.

John Mashey, a computer designer who has filled a role similar to Mr. Crawford's at neighboring MIPS Computer, a leading maker of RISC chips, has followed Intel closely, paying particular attention to the Pentium.

"They did a fine job," he said. "They made smart choices and added clever tricks."

MR. MASHEY isn't ready to throw in the towel, though. He says that when the dust settles from all the new chip introductions, the RISC designers will still have a big edge.

He notes that for similar performance, the Pentium processor has 3.1 million transistors, compared with only 1.3 million for a comparably fast MIPS chip. A chip with fewer transistors is cheaper, easier to design, and uses less power.

"There is nothing obviously stupid about their design," Mr. Mashey said. "But it illustrates how hard it's getting. They've got lots of money to spend, but there are physical laws that you can't fight."

Mr. Crawford, for one, is equal to the challenge of keeping up with RISC. Named an Intel Fellow last year, the company's highest technical position, he is at work on the P7, one of two processors Intel is betting will succeed the Pentium in a couple of years.

He says he feels no sense of burnout despite being on his fourth major design. He makes an effort to leave work each evening by 6 -- frequently on his bicycle, riding the five miles home to spend time with his wife, Norma, their two children and the foster children Mrs. Crawford cares for.

Yet as many people find in Silicon Valley, work has a way of penetrating almost every hour of the day. Engineers like Mr. Shoemaker note that they are prone to getting electronic-mail messages sent by Mr. Crawford from his home late at night.

Photos: John Crawford with a greatly enlarged circuit diagram of Intel's Pentium chip.; Crawford with an abacus he'd been given, one thing he couldn't master. (Photographs by Jim Wilson/The New York Times)